Lorato Tshenkeng
Pretoria - “So what I heard today is, it’s more about what we do and not necessarily what we say that enhances the brand of our country.”
These are the words of Clayson Monyela, the head of public diplomacy at the Department of International Relations and Co-operation. He made this statement two weeks ago as part of his opening reflections during the panel discussion when Brand South Africa – the agency responsible for managing the country’s image and reputation, hosted its fifth annual Nation Brand Forum.
Themed "Believe in South Africa" the 2021 Nation Brand Forum had gathered social partners from business, civil society and the government with a mission to reflect on the challenges of economic recovery during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speakers discussed numerous interventions on how to reposition the country for growth while building confidence in its recovery plans.
In an attempt to emphasise his assertions, Monyela mentioned examples of work that South Africa is involved in across the African continent and other parts of the world. His input made a lot of sense to me, not only because he is one of the most outstanding communicators in our country, but as a strategic communicator myself, I know all too well how bad decisions, inefficiency, lack of results and many other negative attributes make reputation management difficult.
Consistent with his line of work, Monyela often uses his social media to promote positive messages about our country, in particular on Twitter where he has a substantial following.
However, last Thursday showed off an interesting side of this former Brand South Africa trustee when he took to Twitter with a veiled threat couched as advice to Lukhona Mnguni, a broadcaster at PowerFM987 – one of South Africa’s most influential talk show radio stations.
In his 3-part tweet, Monyela took exception to Mnguni’s characterisation of people who stole public money as amasela (thieves in Xhosa), and further accused him of abusing the station by projecting a personal political agenda. It was the closing sentence of that twitter thread that was most shocking and disappointing – “That's if you intend/want to stay there for long” – a message that if Mnguni did not stop calling people who stole public money amasela, he would lose his job at the station.
Why would such a distinguished communicator and former broadcaster choose to intimidate a talk show host seemingly with a plan to silence his voice on thieves who destroy South Africa, rather than build it? Does this mean that Monyela cares more about the image of the government than the people who are gravely affected by the brazen thieving?
Is it possible that Monyela is sending a message to the owners of PowerFM987 that if they do not silence or neutralise Mnguni, government officials will use their power to withdraw the advertising budgets thus affect the sustainability of the station? Could it be that Monyela’s message is intended to catalyse other senior government officials who agree with his sentiments to punish PowerFM987 if it decides not to keep Mnguni in check? Will the station bow to the pressure and ask Mnguni to tone it down?
Although I don’t have answers to all these questions, one thing is for sure – the elections seem to have a way of revealing people’s real characters and values. In a country where millions go to bed hungry, billions of rand in public money is lost to rampant corruption and with the worst inequality levels in the world – it remains curious why a senior government official would not be outraged that the industrial-scale thieving exacerbates all these ills.
Perhaps this is just a sign of panic by the governing party that if the amasela label become a lot more pervasive, their local government election campaign will be affected negatively.
While I believe that Monyela was not performing to the gallery when speaking at the Nation Brand Forum, his boldness in wanting to silence Mnguni instead of being courageous and consistently calling out thieves who steal from the public purse speaks against the spirit of his recent profound reflections.
A new culture of boldness against wrongdoing is needed. Perhaps Monyela’s threat is a very important reminder that for the sake of safeguarding future generations, as a nation we ought to place more value on the right things. If we truly care about our young democracy and want it to thrive, we ought to be outraged by thieves who steal from the public purse.
Perhaps it is also a sad reminder that governing parties and corporations with significant advertising spend will sometimes withdraw and withhold commercial benefits to media platforms they disagree with as a way of silencing or neutralising their voices.
The message from the Nation Brand Forum was clear – the recovery of the South African economy hinges on consistently making the right decisions that focus on inclusive growth, and most importantly, on rebuilding trust and confidence in society. Trust will never be rebuilt by threats against the fourth estate, but by congruency between words and deeds.
Senior government officials must be emboldened to speak publicly against thieving without any concern of retribution. All in society, including the ANC’s leaders and public servants aligned with the party, must co-operate with the law enforcement agencies to support the recovery of stolen public money.
In their wisdom, the African elders used the lion, a symbol of power, to articulate the negative effect of failing to work together with the Northern Sotho idiom – ‘tau tša hloka seboka di šitwa ke nare e hlotša.’ The idiom basically means that regardless of their power and strength, if a pride of lions lack that spirit of working as a team, then they will fail even to bring down a seriously hurt and limping buffalo.
Let us focus – leave the labels and deal decisively with amasela, so that we deepen our democracy based on the right values.
Pretoria News